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You’ve been busy all day, but your head hits the pillow, and the adrenaline is still pumping. It happens to everyone once in a while. However, when you’ve got another busy day staring you in the face, you can get desperate to get some sleep. You’re in luck. There are things you can do to calm your mind and relax your body before bed. 

Activities to Help You Sleep (and Why They Work)

Guest Post By Family Living Today

Exercise

Exercise benefits all aspects of your health, physical and mental. It’s a great stress reliever that gives you an endorphin boost.

Endorphins flood your body with feel-good emotions. Exercise also helps you feel more tired at night to ease you into sleep. 

It doesn’t necessarily matter when you exercise as long as you do it consistently.

You know yourself best.

If you’re bursting with energy in the evening, a nighttime exercise routine may relieve tension and get rid of energy so you can settle down at night.

Early birds may find that evening exercise wakes them up rather than helps them shut down. In that case, a morning routine makes more sense.

You have to plan your routine based on your needs and preferences. 

Meditation

Meditation has been used for centuries to connect the mind and body. Regular meditation trains your mind to stay in the present moment rather than dwelling on the past or future.

Over time, as you become more adept at meditating, it can automatically trigger your body’s ‘relaxation response,’ which causes your heart rate and blood pressure to drop.

Beyond that, meditation can also reduce your perception of pain and restore the depth and quality of your sleep.

The best part—you can meditate while lying in bed. Be sure to get comfortable and have everything ready to go so you can drift off to sleep. 

Yoga

Yoga brings many of the mental benefits of meditation and adds the release of physical tension too. Yoga poses can target sore shoulders or a stiff back while using meditative breathing to focus the mind. A consistent yoga practice can also reduce stress-related inflammation, improve your moods, and increase energy. 

You can do a few calming poses before getting into bed or try doing child’s pose or corpse pose while lying in bed. Like meditation, the benefits increase the more consistent you are. 

Journaling

If your days whirl by like a tornado, journaling can help you process everything so you can close your eyes. But that’s not the only way you can use a journal for better sleep.

It could be a place to record your gratitude.

Finding the positive in your day to day life can give you a mood boost that helps your sleep. 

Another option is to keep a journal next to the bed to write down anything you don’t want to forget.

Are you worried you’ll forget to buy milk? Write it down.

Do you need to remember to pick up kids from soccer practice tomorrow? Write it down.

If you write it all down, your mind can rest easy. 

Conclusion

Sleep may be elusive at times. However, as you find activities that help you relax, use them to your advantage. Develop a consistent bedtime routine with each activity performed in the same order.

A consistent routine with the right activities could be exactly what you need to get rid of those sleepless nights.

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